Israel and Jordan Dining

The food in Israel and Jordan is healthy and colorful; I really liked it. Jerry, being a meat, potatoes and ice cream kind of guy, wasn't as delighted with the food as I was.

Every meal we ate at the hotels in Israel was buffet-style and laden with hummus, tomatoes, cucumbers, red, yellow and green bell peppers, spinach, eggplant, greens, pita bread, olive oil as well as multiple other breads, main dishes and desserts.

In order to keep kosher guests happy, no dairy foods are available at dinner, though meat is, and no meat is available at breakfast, but dairy foods are. Thus, margarine, but not butter, is available at dinner, and desserts that taste and look like cheesecake and whipped cream have no cheese or whipped cream in them. But butter was available for your bread at breakfast. There were always fabulous pastries at breakfast, too.

I gained weight on the trip, but Jerry lost weight.

Above you can see some of the colorful foods at the dinner buffet in the Dan Caesarea Hotel in Caesarea, on the Mediterranean. It was our first evening in Israel, 27 November 2012.

Above and below you can see some of the many colorful and healthy offerings at the Dan Caesarea Hotel's breakfast buffet on our first morning in Israel (28 Nov). Note all the different kinds of cheeses...because it's for breakfast, not dinner. If you click on the photo above, you can read the signs showing what kind of cheese each dish holds. There was also always smoked and pickled fish for breakfast, which I liked but Jerry didn't.

There was always a wide variety of breads and rolls available at breakfast.

Later that day (28 Nov), we ate lunch in a Druze village, Dalyit Al Carmel, slightly south of Mount Carmel. The Druze ethnic group/religion is a split off Islam. It's a secretive religion, but the people are very warm and friendly. The Druze are extremely patriotic toward Israel and many of them serve in the Israeli army. The restaurant, Halabi Brothers Oriental Restaurant, is known for their great falafel lunches, so that's what we had, served family style.

The odd thing was that there were no utensils for serving individual plates, so we sort of scraped the hummus, etc., with our knives onto our pita bread. Falafal is fried mashed garbanzo beans and seasonings...very tasty! That small cup of dark liquid is VERY strong coffee.

On 29 Nov we ate at a very nice Kibbutz restaurant on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, called Kibbutz En Gev, where we had a Saint Peter's Fish Lunch:

Of course, the precursor to the fish was the pita bread with all the trimmings--hummus, falafel, vegetables, etc. The fish was excellent--freshly caught and fried.

Not long after lunch, we took a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee (from east to west) in a wooden boat built to look somewhat like a first century fishing boat, only this one had a motor.

That was incredibly fun as the pilot played a CD of contemporary Christian praise and worship music as he threw pieces of pita bread up in the air. Out of nowhere came a hundred or more small seagulls swooping all around, snatching the pieces of bread and gobbling them up:

The pilot did this for about 10 or 15 minutes as we cruised along watching the amazing air show. I don't think one little piece of pita bread fell into the sea...the gulls were so quick to grab them.

The next day, 30 Nov, we ate at another very elegant kibbutz restaurant, the kibbutz Kfar Blum Restaurant, pictured above. I never knew that a kibbutz restaurant would be so elegant.

We finally arrived in Jerusalem on 2 Dec and stayed at the Dan Panorama Hotel, where we stayed for four nights. There are several Dan Hotels in Israel; the two we stayed in were quite elegant. I thought this honey dripping from the honeycomb was unique and striking at the hotel's dinner buffet.

Above: breakfast at the Dan Panorama Hotel

Above and below are photos of the Shwarma Bar cafe in old Jerusalem. Jerry and I shared a chicken shwarma lafa. In the lower left photo above, you can see a tower of flattened cooked chicken breasts warming on a rod. The man would slice pieces of chicken off the tower, going straight down from top to bottom.

You can see the shwarma lafa opened up in the lower right photo--it was filled with various vegetables, a falafel and chicken all on a huge pita bread that looked more like a large flour tortilla, but it was chewier.

It was delicious and it cost 33 shekels (about $8).

After staying one night in Elat by the Red Sea, we crossed over to Jordan and made our way north up to the Taybet Zaman Hotel, 6 miles south of Petra on 7 Dec. We had never stayed in any hotel remotely like this one. It was formerly a Bedouin village with all the buildings made of large hewn rocks. Someone renovated it, making the former Bedouin homes into hotel rooms and constructing other buildings as the common areas and the main office to look like the ancient Bedouin buildings. They even had a swimming pool, though it was empty. Water is at a premium in Jordan; thus it is not served at meals--you have to buy it separately.

Above you can see the dining area where we had dinners and breakfasts. It was like being in an ancient castle. It was very cold in Jordan, much colder than in Israel.

The next day we explored Petra, but that's another post.

After seeing the view from Mount Nebo, where God allowed Moses to see the promised land (Israel) and then exploring the decapolis city of Jerash, we headed back to Tel Aviv, Israel with stops along the way.

And above you can see our group (at two tables) at our last dinner together in Tel Aviv. It was a great group of people; we all got along very well and had a lot of fun together. Our dinner was at a restaurant with a view of the Mediterranean and had excellent Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food.

December 10th was a very long day: we awoke at 6 AM in Amman, Jordan, and then traveled/toured all day long until we got to the airport in Tel Aviv at 8:30 PM for our after-midnight flight. We were definitely ready to go home after 15 days of go-go-going.

It was the trip of a life-time and I now have images in my mind of places mentioned in the Bible.